The guilt of resentment for something you know wasn’t their fault, but still the resentment is there; and in some way, feels validated.
My husband just came home after a 10-month deployment. It was shorter than his first one, but no matter the time difference, each time he is away I become this whole other person that I’ve grown to hate, and in reaction to that, I start to resent him for making me turn into someone I don’t recognize. Logically thinking, I know that it wasn’t his preference to leave his family for so long and I understand that, and support the man he is and his commitment to his country. But as humans we don’t live on logic alone. We’re also driven by emotion.
I know it’s not his fault that he was away for so long, nor would it ever be his intention to ever cause me any harm, but I also know that the pain I went through was very real. That this deployment broke me mentally in ways that I didn’t even think was possible. It drove me into a deep depression, catapulted me into a darkness I had never seen before. It caused me to lose an unhealthy amount of weight, brought on anxiety, increased my migraines, and caused insomnia. It caused me to lose faith in the type of woman I am and the strength I thought I had. All of this made me feel weak, defeated, and broken. Not only did I barely recognize the person looking at me in the mirror, but I grew to hate her.
This hate and disconnect from myself is what made me feel resentment towards my husband. No matter how much I know he’s not totally at fault, there are still those thoughts that in the end when I was going through so much, he wasn’t there! I feel guilty for internally blaming him, but everything I went through was very real, and caused me a lot of pain, and in that sense, my feelings of resentment feel validated.
Even if I know it’s not his fault, am I really wrong for feeling the way I do? … No. I’m not wrong, and anybody else in my situation wouldn’t be wrong for feeling this way. Everyone is entitled to their feelings. It’s how you project those feelings that matter. I do hold some resentment towards him. That’s just what the truth is. Every deployment breaks me down a little bit more, and each time it’s harder and harder to find my way back, and eventually, I’m afraid that I won’t. That the person I once was will be lost forever.
Which one of us is to blame for that? Him for not being there, or me for not being stronger? Well, neither of us, really. It’s all circumstantial. It’s not his fault that he couldn’t be here, and it’s not my fault I went through what I did. It was reactional to my situation. Understandably so. But now here we are, standing in the middle of a battlefield, with no one to blame. So where do you go from here? How do you accept these feelings knowing that there’s no accountability for them?
Communication. You communicate these feelings in a respectable way and even though there’s no one to accept responsibility for them, there can still be an understanding of them. Having an understanding will at least give you the validation you deserve, without creating a space between you and the other person. Because the other truth is, neither of you went through the deployment alone. Each of you went through it and suffered in your own way. You both made sacrifices. That’s what you need to focus on. When it comes to the impact that it had on both of your mental health, you’re both standing on the same side of the firing squad. Even though each of you may have had a different experience, the damage it caused is still the same.
You started out the deployment together, on the same side, and that’s how you need to finish it. The deployment doesn’t end when the soldier comes home. There’s a whole aftermath that people don’t always see or speak of. There’s a whole adjustment period. I know for me, in the beginning, my husband and I would just be standing in the kitchen, having a normal conversation… about donuts… and it was like he never even left. Everything was right back to normal. It was over-normalcy that would trigger that inner anger, frustration, and resentment both towards my husband, but more so towards myself. We both knew he would eventually be back home, and that we’d be able to resume our normal life. Still I had let the deployment take a hold on me, and not in a positive way. Standing there in the kitchen, like nothing happened, made me feel like I went through all that pain and suffering for nothing. That’s the part that killed me. Why couldn’t I just think my way through it? Why couldn’t I tell myself that it would all be over eventually and everything would be ok? WHY???? Well, because like I said earlier, as humans we don’t live on logic alone. We’re also driven by emotion.
I truly do believe that my husband is my soulmate. Our souls are connected in a way that I can’t explain. Even though my brain is fully aware and comprehensive of the situation, the only thing my soul knows, it that the other half of its existence is not there. It feels the separation and thus the heart takes over and all rationality goes out the window. (temporarily at least) And there you are. In the one place you know in your mind you shouldn’t be, but all your heart feels is the pain and the soul, the abandonment.
All you can do is acknowledge both. Discuss your feelings in an open way, and take each other’s hand and figure out a way through it together. It’s not about who’s right and who’s wrong, because, in this situation, there really is no right or wrong. It’s just what is. There doesn’t have to be someone to blame. There just needs to be an understanding and respect for what the other person went through. Remember that when you got married, you agreed to unite as one force. You agreed to walk through your path of life together.
It’s painful the sacrifices you have to make as a military family, and although we had been together for years prior to getting married, his deployment caused us to miss our entire first year of marriage together. We missed so many firsts. I try to think that we already shared all of those moments together with the same amount of love prior to us being married, but the truth is, I still wanted all those firsts as husband and wife and it really sucked that we had just vowed to spend our lives together as one, but then we ended up living two very separate lives for the first year of our marriage. In fact, he wasn’t even home for our one year anniversary. I lost all of those, what should have been special, moments. I can’t lie and say it doesn’t bother me, but that doesn’t mean I have to pin those feelings against my husband either. He didn’t leave to go to prison. He got called to serve his country. An oath that he had taken back in 2008. A year and a half before I even met him. I had to respect that.
It doesn’t take away from what I went through. It just means I had to find a way to also ask myself to be understanding of my feelings and the situation, the same way I wanted him to. Our feelings can be valid and still not have a responsible party. That’s what you have to learn to understand. It doesn’t make it an easy task. It’s always easier and sometimes even more satisfying to have somewhere to place the blame. You tend to want to hold someone responsible for something that has caused you pain. People look to seek justice and accountability. It’s usually the thing that gives us validation, someone else acknowledging that they have caused you harm. Think about a time when someone hurt you in some form or another. You don’t always look to seek revenge, but you’re almost always looking for an apology. Why? Because we want to be validated, and we want the respect of someone else owning up to what they did. They need to humble themselves and admit that they did something wrong. It’s usually after this occurrence that we’re able to move forward.
The thing is, we’re not always afforded this. It doesn’t make what we went through worthless. It just remains nameless. It can be a hard pill to swallow, but together, there’s usually a way to figure it out. It really is just about remembering that there is no right or wrong. There’s just what is. And if you survived the deployment, then you’re a warrior, and surely between the two of you, you can conquer this too.
I’m not saying it’s an easy thing to do. Even while writing this post, you can see the confliction as I go back and forth; supporting my husband and acknowledging that he is not the direct source of my pain, but still wanting to claim my feelings and the hurt I still felt. This my loves, is the classic battle of the heart at war with the mind. But as long as you recruit your significant other to fight this battle with you, side by side, not against each other, you’ll eventually be able to sort out these emotions in a healthy way that will help strengthen you as an individual, as well as a couple. In the end, it will just be another brick that you will add to your foundation. It isn’t about the struggles you go through. It’s about the lessons you learn from them and the ability to find strength in each other. The hard times today give you something to look back on tomorrow and say, “See, we made it, and we’ll make it through this too”!
In the end, the resentment may be false, but your feelings are still real and they deserve to be felt, understood, and respected. Just make sure to be as open to their feelings as you want them to be to yours.
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